TORONTO — Everyone knows what the Boston Bruins are, and everyone knows what the Boston Bruins look like. They look like Shawn Thornton, whose terraformed face currently features seven stitches above his left eyebrow and a black eye that is fading to bronze underneath it. They look like Milan Lucic, with the most perfectly menacing face in hockey hanging above a mass of muscles piled across his shoulders and back. They look like Zdeno Chara, the giant, roaring as he hoisted the Stanley Cup higher than any man ever has.

The Boston Bruins are built from the net out, with goaltending and a stout defence and top-six forwards and bottom-six forwards. To borrow a phrase, they feature a notable level of pugnacity, of testosterone, of truculence and belligerence. They are, in other words, a team that Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke — and new coach Randy Carlyle, for that matter — probably sees in his dreams.

Tuesday night the Bruins came to Toronto in a funk, freighted by injuries and something else, stuck in a two-month search for consistency, for urgency, for that championship edge. They walked out of the Air Canada Centre with a 5-4 win and remained the closest thing to Burke and Carlyle’s Anaheim teams that you can find.

“We were fortunate enough to have a very tough team,” said Thornton, who played for Burke’s Ducks. “I think our team is built that way. I know that [Carlyle] will make players play outside their comfort zone, or they won’t play. They will earn their paycheques every day, that’s for sure.”

Carlyle can make these players work as hard as they can, but there’s a ceiling on toughness. More, this team has a ceiling on the will — and just as importantly, the ability — to compete defensively.

“It’s a skill. Winning your fair share of one-on-one battles is a skill set, and it needs to be developed with this hockey club,” said Carlyle, a former Norris Trophy winner as a player.

“Stepping inside and using your legs and your body, instead of all arms, there’s a skill set. If you look at the great players in this game, they have a good stick. They don’t have to use their body … You’ve got to skate to get inside, and that’s all part of a skill that we think has to be developed to a higher level with our group.

“That’s the way the game is supposed to be played. You’re supposed to be aggressive, it’s supposed to be hard-hitting. If the fighting does occur, so be it. But the compete level is what it’s going to take to turn this hockey club around.”

When Burke introduced his old friend on Saturday in Montreal, he indicated that finally, he has a coach who fully believes in those four famous words that Burke threw around when he was hired in November 2008. “I think if there’s one philosophical commitment that Randy and I share is I like a rough team,” Burke said.

But now, Carlyle has arrived to find that Burke has built a team that can skate and score, and not much else. On the toughness side, the team called up the scarred knuckles and hard chin of Jay Rosehill. If the fighting does occur, so be it.

“It’s only been a couple days so far, so it’s hard to go into detail into exactly what he expects,” defenceman Luke Schenn said. “But at the end of the day he wants us to compete hard and play physical. They brought up Rosehill, so I guess that answers your question a little bit.

“You know what he wants. He’s obviously proven himself and won a Cup before, and you saw the way his team played. Just thetwo type of guys they are, you know what to expect.”

Indeed, Burke’s Ducks led the league in fights for three straight seasons, and bullied the poor Ottawa Senators in the 2007 Stanley Cup final. Boston did the same to the Vancouver Canucks in 2011. Ergo, Rosehill.

“Obviously I didn’t get the opportunity I was looking for under Ron, and with Randy’s track record he likes to play his guys as long as they do their part,” Rosehill said. “So I’m planning on making a good impression, and doing the things that will help this team. And hopefully he sees that and I’m able to play.

“I think [the Bruins] have the ability to [bully teams], but it depends on the team they’re playing; if they’re going to get bullied, or if they’re going to stand up for themselves. I think we’re going to be the kind of team that stands up for itself, and push back.”

They will be now, as best as they can. Toronto entered Tuesday night with 23 fights, according to HockeyFights.com, tied with Dallas for 21st in the league. Boston entered the game with 50, three fewer than the East-leading New York Rangers.

Rosehill had a long and serious scrap with Thornton early in the second period. Colby Armstrong — in the same season he suffered a serious concussion — got his face split open by the heavy hands of Dennis Seidenberg, and left a trail of blood splattered on the ice, all the way to the dressing room. It sounded like he may have broken his nose, and another head injury is a concern. Tim Connolly, of all people, wrestled with Brad Marchand, and threw him dangerously to the ice. According to HockeyFights.com, Connolly had never fought in his career. Matthew Lombardi got two minutes for snowing Tim Thomas, for goodness sakes. Oh, but then there were the five goals allowed. Clearly, proper truculence is harder than it looks.

It seems like a long time ago that Burke signed Colton Orr to a four-year contract, before a concussion and a changing game pushed the enforcer to the minors. That day Burke delivered an aria for the enforcer, a requiem for the heavyweights.

“I know the Greenpeace folks will be happy with this,” Burke said that day. “But … when a player with the character of Colton Orr, when he can’t contribute in this league, then I’m not sure I like the way it’s going.”

We know where the Leafs would like to go, now. But it feels like they’re a long, long way away from what they’d like to be.